Skeleton Architecture

There's something so special about gifting something hand-crafted to someone. It's created with (lots of) time, love, and consideration, and is something that they can always keep which will remind them of you. When the nights are long, the wind is wild, and the weather's awful, I'm a big fan of crocheting, and in the last year I've made a couple of blankets. You can read about the first one here  (an Attic 24 Ripple ), and the second one (pictured above), here  (that's an Attic 24 Cosy Blanket ). The first lives on the sofa, and is shared by everbody, but the second was made specifically for my boy. It was that one that I was thinking of when I wrote this sonnet for this week's Prompt ( in between ). The love between Between each stitch resides a point in time: the programme watched, the laughter shared, the love, the cat's keen eye on dwindling ball of twine: swift catching claw is greeted with a shove. Between each shift in colour ...

So I'm a bit late to this party, but Jackie Kay was named as the new Makar (the Scottish Poet Laureate) back in March, there's a lovely interview with her on Woman's Hour, talking about getting the phone call from Nicola Sturgeon (the Scottish First Minister). It's early on in the programme here . So I thought I'd share five of my favourites of her poems. First up is 'Her', a haunting poem which brings up more questions than it answers, and has a lovely rhythm to it. You can hear Jackie read it here . On the same site you can hear her read Things Fall Apart , which is a fascinating slice of an important moment in Jackie's life. I was drawn to it for the title, reminding me of Chinua Achebe's novel of the same name, taken from the line in Yeats' poem, The Second Coming : "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;". I love the way Kay focuses in on her father and then out to the context, finally lighting on the connection between th...

In my last round up of my favourite podcasts of the moment ( here ), I mentioned The History of English , which, at that point, I was binge listening to. Sadly I've caught up on it now, and am having to cope with a drip feed of podcasts instead! Anyway, there is lots of inspirational stuff in that podcast. And one aspect led to my writing this poem. English, as you'll know, is a smashing language for poetry, because we have so very many words, giving us lots of nuances of meaning. However, it was not always thus. When the Angles and their chums first invaded Britain, and settled here, there were not enough words to have good enough rhyming poems, and yet, before writing, stories were remembered and recited, so instead of rhyming poets would use alliteration. They would take the dominant sounds at the end of a line of a poem to use in the beginning of the next. This (like rhyming), is a good mnemonic device for the person reciting.  Nowadays, of course, alliteration is grea...

The prompt this week from Mum Turned Mom  is 'choice', and I'm choosing to take part with a poem about the difficulty in choosing, and Scottish politics. Politics! Sex and religion will follow (and have gone before). The Scottish election is coming up on Thursday, and I'm looking forward to voting. I know what I'm planning on putting on my polling forms, but I'll try not to put any subliminal advertising into this post (I won't change the colour of the background to influence you either). I know that my vote is a drop in the ocean, and I'm happy that that's the case in Scotland. I really like the Scottish Parliament, I think it works brilliantly, if you're wondering about the difference between that and the Westminster Parliament, just compare the Westminster PMQs with the Scottish FMQs (you'll find them on YouTube). Anyway, enough wittering, on with the poem. I was trying for a sonnet, but I ended up with a different rhyme scheme. It...